MIAMI – At least 13 employees of media organizations were killed and two disappeared in the past six months in the Western Hemisphere, according to preliminary reports presented Sunday by members of a press association that promotes free expression in the Americas.

The Inter American Press Association said media freedom is increasingly under attack in the Western Hemisphere, especially in countries such as Venezuela and Colombia.

Mexico, meanwhile, has become one of the most dangerous countries in the hemisphere for journalists, said Gonzalo Marroquin, head of the IAPA’s committee on press freedom, during the group’s 63rd General Assembly in Miami.

“The situation is not improving in general. We are seeing that in some countries it is becoming considerably worse,” Marroquin said.

Final reports will be issued Tuesday.

Some advances have been made, the group said. The U.S. House and Senate Judiciary committees have approved bills that would shield reporters from being forced to reveal their sources in federal court. Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled a local government could not withdraw advertising from a newspaper simply because of its critical coverage. The Mexican senate decriminalized libel and defamation on a federal level.

But in Mexico, three journalists and three delivery workers were killed, the IAPA reported. Two other reporters disappeared.

Journalists in Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Haiti, Paraguay, Peru and the United States also were killed. Originally, the IAPA put the number at eight.

In the U.S., police said Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey was killed walking to work in August by a man who reportedly told authorities he was concerned about Bailey’s investigation into the finances of his employer.

Though the press association focuses on the Western Hemisphere, Iraq has been the world’s most dangerous country for journalists in recent years. About 160 journalists and media support workers have been killed there since the war began in March 2003, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

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